Won't start, says enable VT-X

[JRStern]

I've had the same version of VMWare freebie player on my workstation for a year or so, it worked fine a week ago, but when I try to start now I get a message to enable VT-X and disable "Trusted Exec".  I managed to find my BIOS access, it says "supported" but doesn't seem to have a way to further enable.  About a 5yo workstation, Intel Core i5-4460, ASUS UEFI BIOS.  I don't know what could have changed!?

(It may have gotten a "Windows Update" since I last used it)

I let it download and update the player, but didn't help.

Help!?!

Thanks.

Josh

[RaSystemlord]

I can't find the full logic of these events, but ...

1. Virtualization has to be enabled in BIOS. With older versions, it wasn't needed (in the basic case), not sure if it was 12.x or 14.x versions.

If you have a bad battery in BIOS, it might have been reset to defaults and you need to enable it again. If you cannot enable it, your BIOS is not capable or your BIOS version is too old. Try to flash it again - however, if it truly has been enabled before and now you cannot enable it, flashing will probably fail and the motherboard is gone.

2. You perhaps have Windows 10? (for the record, which version, 2004, or something?).

Windows Feature Upgrade (or even a more simple Update) may render any application at any upgrade/update to a non-working state. It happens seldom, but with a certain Upgrade/Application -combination, it happens every time. The solution is simple uninstall/reinstall. Now you are saying that you already did that.

Otherwise,Windows Update/Upgrade shouldn't matter, if you have new enough VMware Workstation Player, for that particular Windows 10 version.

3. You need to have virtualization ON, in VM settings as well. It's not an exact science what must be ON - it depends on the HostOS-versions-GuestOS, none of which you are mentioning anyway. "CPU Performance Counters", seems to be a must in the case of Win10 Guest - perhaps all of them can be turned ON ... it's a bit confusing, because when creating a Windows 10 VM, not everything can be turned ON, but afterwards you can.

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As mentioned in the beginning, the full logic is not there, but if I would have a guess, then you are running too new VMware Player version for your computer. Or your BIOS is outdated, which can be corrected by flashing a new one, hopefully. It is not only about CPU, it is about motherboard as well. There might be some interest to know, if the motherboard is worse than the CPU, what is the maker of the computer?

[JRStern]

PC built by local shop.

Yes, it's Windows 10, but it gets all the (annoying) updates.

I had a previous version of VMWare player on this when I first got the workstation 5 years ago, it worked until, oh, about two years ago, when it suddenly became unhappy with something, and I updated it, then it was fine again.

Until today.

I'll call the shop on Tuesday, of course stuff goes haywire on weekends.

Thanks.

[RaSystemlord]

Thanks for the further explanation.

As for the BIOS discussion - nothing really changes in BIOS because of time passed or because of outside sources. Other than it getting reset, because of bad battery AND disconnected power from motherboard (at the same time).

Based on your timeline, there are some BIOS settings, or than virtualization, that I cannot anticipate, that have changed ... OR your motherboard is starting to loose it.

Built by a local PC shop, is kind of good news, because they can change the motherboard to something better or something solid, at a reasonable cost. Or somebody else can do it - old motherboards are cheap to buy as used and at least here, it is very safe to buy them from the nerds   . However, you cannot upgrade the motherboard to a newer technology - I mean not technology-wise (commercially, people can say or position what they like) ... if you do, all that is left from the old computer it the chassis, probably without the power source and the mouse and keyboard, which you want to change to something better .

Jumping to the conclusion that motherboard is bad, is too early at this stage, but I'm just mentioning those things, in case you need them further on ...